y, trying to get a shot
at them. They had, he told me, descended to water, but they had chosen
a spot so difficult of approach without discovery, that he had found it
impossible to get within shot of them.

RIDGE TO THE SOUTH-EAST.

There was a considerable rapid just below our position, which I
examined before dark. Not seeing any danger, I requested M'Leay to
proceed down it in the boat as soon as he had breakfasted, and to wait
for me at the bottom of it. As I wished to ascertain the nature and
height of the elevations which Fraser had magnified into something
grand, Fraser and I proceeded to the centre of a large plain,
stretching from the left bank of the river to the southward. It was
bounded to the S.E. by a low scrub; to the S. a thickly wooded ridge
appeared to break the level of the country. It extended from east to
west for four or five miles, and then gradually declined. At its
termination, the country seemed to dip, and a dense fog, as from an
extensive sheet of water, enveloped the landscape. The plain was
crowded with cockatoos, that were making their morning's repast on the
berries of the salsolae and rhagodia, with which it was covered.

DISTANT RANGES SEEN.

M'Leay had got safely down the rapid, so that as soon as I joined him,
we proceeded on our journey. We fell in with the tribe we had already
seen, but increased in numbers, and we had hardly left them, when we
found another tribe most anxiously awaiting our arrival. We stayed with
the last for some time, and exhausted our vocabulary, and exerted our
ingenuity to gain some information from them. I directed Hopkinson to
pile up some clay, to enquire if we were near any hills, when two or
three of the blacks caught the meaning, and pointed to the N.W.
Mulholland climbed up a tree in consequence of this, and reported to me
that he saw lofty ranges in the direction to which the blacks pointed;
that there were two apparently, the one stretching to the N.E., the
other to the N.W. He stated their distance to be about forty miles, and
added that he thought he could observe other ranges, through the gap,
which, according to the alignment of two sticks, that I placed
according to Mulholland's directions, bore S. 130 W.

We had landed upon the right bank of the river, and there was a large
lagoon immediately behind us. The current in the river did not run so
strong as it had been. Its banks were much lower, and were generally
covered with reeds. The spac